Five Christmas cards for September!!!

Good morning!!!

Here I am as promised every month with my five Christmas cards for this month!!! - Oh it's all going so well!!!

 I've popped them in three photo's so that you can see that each one is slightly different to the next one.

So, I have used the lovely Poinsettia by Woodware for these cards and the Seasons Greetings sentiment is also from that same set.  The Wishing you A Magical Christmas is from Stamps by Chloe.

I have stamped each flower with a perfect medium ink pad and heat embossed with white powder. I also used the same technique for all the sentiments.

These took me a little longer than usual for batch making as they have been painted in with lovely bright Brusho's and finished off in the centres with aqua markers applied undiluted.  The backgrounds have been done by masking off each flower first with masking fluid (this took a while!) and then mixing a couple of Distress Oxides and adding some filler stamps and stencils.  A tiny touch of white pen and I was done!

There you go! Month nine - mission complete - I'm nearly there with my news years resolution!!!

Hope you like them! Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne xxx

Five Christmas Cards for January!!!!!!!

Good morning!

Look at me!!! I'm off to a wonderful start with my new years resolution of 5 Christmas cards a month for 2017!!!!

As promised, I will share on one blog each month my 5 Christmas cards for each month and here we are with January's makes.

I haven't got a step by step on these but I have taken individual photo's of each one for you so that you get a closer look at each of them.

Each card being slightly different I shall try to explain the basics to these.  

I have really enjoyed playing with lace through 2016 so I thought it would be super to start my Christmas card adventure using some lace - not very Christmassy? - that depends on how you use it! I believe that most things can become Christmassy if you put your mind to it!

These cards started with a piece of lace being placed over my Sheena Stamping card and sponging through some distress ink.  I didn't stick the lace down, if you are careful you can just hold it and dab gently for a lovely loose effect.  I then used a Woodware poinsettia stamp, some of these are stamped with Archival watering can and others have been embossed with clear embossing powder over it (where I was going to use water colour within the image). I have added some foliage from Clarity Stamp too.

The sentiment is from Clarity Stamp.

OK, let me see if I can tell you one by one how I've coloured the Poinsettias:-

Water coloured with Inktense pencils and die cut into and layered on a fibre mat. Finished with sparkle pens.

Intense pencils here but using them as colouring pencils without water this time and matted on to plain card stock, finished with sparkle pens.

Inktense water colour pencils here and die cut into with bright red mat.  Finished with sparkle pens.

Inktense water colour pencils, bright red mat, no die cutting this time and finished with sparkle pens.

Oh yes, my favourite! Good old Polychromo pencils, look at the intensity of colour that builds up here.  Matted on to a fibre mat and finished with sparkle pens.

I know that the sparkle pens can't be seen on the photo's but look - a super close up shot - it's there..... honest!!!!!

So, there you go, month 1 - mission complete!

Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne xx

I'm Grateful............

Good morning!

Well I have to admit, this card is a "train journey card" - (meaning that I did most of it while on my train journey up to Durham to see my daughter Hayley at uni!!!) - oh yes, have craft goodies.....can travel!!!!!! - It actually made the journey pass very quickly along with working on my laptop scheduling my blog! (My husband banned all paints so yours truly packed Spectrum Aqua markers and a water brush, along with pencils an acrylic block to mix the colours on, kitchen towel etc etc!!!!).

I took some photo's along the way so lets take our journey and see how I got there shall we?

The first thing that I did was inked up a mini gelli plate and stamped through a normal, pretty paper doily with artistry ink.  I stamped it four times to cover the Sheena stamping card underneath.

There, quite pretty and a good starting point for my stamping.

Right, we were ready to go on the train!!!  (I prepared it to the stage at home!).  I diluted some of the artistry ink on my work mat and just dipped the edges of the card in it and "swooshed" it about in it.  I then stamped my lovely poppies (Woodware) in Archival watering can and we were ready to go!

All the colouring here was done on the train - Spectrum Aqua markers diluted / mixed on my acrylic block and my Spectrum Noir colouring pencils too.  When I got home I highlighted some outer edging with a white pen and the darker side I opted to work with a charcoal pencil.  The sentiment of "I'm grateful" was then stamped in Archival watering can (Chocolate Baroque). Some modelling paste was swept over the same paper doily (I figured that this would have been far too messy on the train and I'd have been asked to get off at the next stop!!!!!!) and some circles were printed with the artistry ink with old bottle lids.

Matted and layered having sponged the same artistry ink on to the outer layer to match the whole colour scheme.

Very happy with that and really pretty! (and was I happy to see my little girl again after six weeks of missing her dreadfully).

A private peek for you (especially those of you that so kindly follow me and pass on such wonderful and kind comments each week - it makes it all so worthwhile).

Myself and Hayley - we went to Lumley Castle for Sunday lunch.

One side of Durham Cathedral - it's enormous!!! A beautiful city if you get the chance to visit.

I would like to enter this piece in to The Craft Barn two weekly challenge of "Poppy":-

http://thecraftbarnblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/two-weekly-challenge.html

Thanks for stopping by,

Leanne xx

Graffiti Happy Birthday.......

Good morning! Off on a different tangent this time! Graffiti!!!!

This was loads of fun!!!  Started with a piece of craft card and embossed it with a brick wall effect embossing folder.  Darkened the edges with walnut Distress Ink then started to play!

The rubber graffiti stamps are from Woodware so stamped those randomly and coloured in with alcohol pens for a nice solid colour.  Stamped the spray can from a set from Bee Crafty and glittered it up to be a bit different! Cut it out and with some 3D tape attached it to the card.  Added some spray paints to make a mess and added some chunky embossing powders around the edge.  This was a more simple card but turned out exactly how I had it in my mind and I was very happy with it.

Well, that was week one for my blog - hope I've done ok?  I've enjoyed it!!!  I will now be posting a couple of times a week I hope (due to the running of several businesses and two teenage children - and I don't suppose I'm alone but some days I just can't get to that craft desk, no matter how hard I try - I run out of hours / stamina!!!!!

I hope I've given you a sneak peek in to my world of stamping and inks and paints (we've still lots to explore) - stay with me,  hence - "a brush with a stamper"..........

Thanks for stopping by,
Leanne x